Wilson noticed her son, Tamarion, was not himself when she picked him up from the bus stop earlier this week.

“I asked him what was wrong, and he told me he got in trouble for saying ‘ma’am’ to a teacher. I was confused,” she said.

Inquiring further, Wilson asked her son to give more detail about the incident. That’s when the fifth-grader at North East Carolina Preparatory School in Tarboro, North Carolina, pulled out a piece of lined paper with the word ma’am written dozens of times.

Wilson was shocked, especially when Tamarion told her that his teacher, who has not been formally identified, told him that he was required to return the piece of paper with a parent’s signature.

The young boy also claimed that the teacher threatened to throw something at him during the incident, his mother said.

“He was disappointed because he felt like he had done something wrong,” she said.

The next afternoon, Wilson went to the school to meet with Tamarion’s teacher and the school’s principal. With her she brought a separate piece of paper on which her son had written the definition of ma’am. (According to the Oxford Dictionaries, ma’am is defined as “a term of respectful or polite address used for a woman”).

Wilson claims Tamarion’s teacher told her that her son “was getting on her nerve when he called her ma’am” but “couldn’t give me a reason of why that was bad.” The teacher also claimed Tamarion knew that she wasn’t serious when she allegedly threatened to throw something at him, Wilson said.

Tamarion has been placed in a different teacher’s class since the incident occured.